The Politics of Adaptation

Okay, I LOVE talking about adaptation. I actually wrote my senior thesis on “Me, Myself, and Isherwood”:
an Exploration of the Creation and Adaptation of “Christopher Isherwood.” In the paper I examined how Isherwood positioned himself as a fictional character in his Berlin Stories, to keep the implications from his life in Berlin as a gay man at a distance from the "real" Christopher Isherwood. From there, John van Druten took "Isherwood" from the book and adapted him to a more focused, refined, and stage friendly asexual character in I am a Camera, to Masteroff, Kander, and Ebb's Cabaret where "Isherwood" is now "Cliff" (all sorts of liminal sexual implications in the name...)and, although an admitted bisexual, engages in a sexual relationship with Sally.

I could go on for 50 pages. But, I will not.

Obviously, I think adaptations are incredibly important in literature for both literary and political reasons. I think teaching context along with tracking changes from adaptation to adaptation is essential to correctly framing the art of adapting work.

For lesson planning, I would love to bring in a director, like Jason Ballweber, and asking them how they get from the page to the stage, and how they manipulate a text to flesh out their vision: